Thursday, 16 August 2012

Piper Malibu ZK-MBU

At Ardmore June 2005

Stumbled across some photos of Piper Malibu ZK-MBUhere looking a little forlorn at Pauanui on either 11 or 12 August. It seems the soft ground may have damaged the nose gear, the pictures tend to indicate the aircraft's nose is resting on the trailer.....

ZK-MBU arrived in the country during the early 1990's and has been with the same owner since its delivery and operated from a lovely private sealed airstrip near Wakefield south of Nelson and aptly named Malibu Park. The aircraft was flown for sometime on its FAA markings of N2482Y and has worn the same scheme throughout its 20 years in NZ. The Malibu is certainly a nice machine and ZK-MBU was the only one in the region for sometime until the arrival of N9099Z, this arriving in June 2007 and initially based at Rangiora but has now gravitated to Nelson and retains in N markings. It has just been on an Australian tour and departed NZ back on 15 June and arrived back 15 August.

The population then grew to three with the arrival of our first turbine Malibu Meridian ZK-OLY. It touched down at Auckland on 21 June 2010 as N598C and it lives at Fielding. ZK-MPG is our fourth and final Malibu and it arrived as N957JK in May 2011 and operates from Tauranga.